Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To chirp as a bird.
- To emit a mournful sound, as birds collected together before a storm.
- To utter as with a chirp.
- noun Clamor; confused noise.
- noun Specifically, the mournful sound emitted before a storm by birds collected together.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Noise; din; esp.; confused noise, clamor, or hum of many voices, notes of birds, or the like.
- intransitive verb obsolete To chirp or to make a mournful cry, as a bird.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb obsolete To
chirp or to make amournful cry , as abird does.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Compare chirp and Anglo-Saxon cyrman, cirman, to cry out.
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Examples
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No sound came to break the quiet of the evening hour save the monotonous plaint of a whippoorwill in a distant brake, and the ceaseless chirm of insects among the leafy boughs and down in the ferns that clustered on the knolls round about.
The Golden Dog William Kirby 1861
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To Captivate, kap'ti-vlte.v. a. To take prifoner, to bring into bondage; to chirm, to fubduc.
A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language 1797
reesetee commented on the word chirm
See chavish. The collective noun "charm," referring to certain flocks of birds, apparently derives from this word.
January 5, 2008
qms commented on the word chirm
The birds in dawn chorus confirm
The early bird captures the worm.
The cries of the winners
And slugabed sinners
Produce a cacophonous chirm.
March 9, 2017